Rite Aid announced today that it is now accepting Apple Pay for purchases made online at www.riteaid.com. The company is the first pharmacy retailer to accept Apple Pay as a form of payment online.

Customers with Apple devices can now shop the nearly 12,000 items available in Rite Aid’s online store and use Apple Pay to pay for their purchase. To use, customers just select the Apple Pay button during checkout and the transaction will be processed in a manner similar to when Apple Pay is used in-store.

“Mobility is critically important to our customers and patients. With our transactions growing on smartphones every week, adding Apple Pay, the most popular digital wallet, will be a welcome enhancement,” said David Abelman, Rite Aid executive vice president of marketing, in a statement. “More than half of all visitors to RiteAid.com use their mobile device and the majority of our customers use their iPhone. By accepting Apple Pay as a form of payment online, we’re staying true to our promise of making it easy and convenient for our customers to shop at Rite Aid.”

The brick-and-mortar RiteAid shops had been accepting ApplePay for over two years now.

And, by the way, it has been over THREE years since ApplePay made its debut with the launch of iOS 8 (and iPhone 6). It is truly disappointing that the adoption rate is still so low.

Two years ago, when Discover card launched ApplePay, they offered unprecedented 10% cashback on all ApplePay transactions until the end of that year (about three months period). After doing some math, I immediately upgraded my 5S to 6S, figuring that it would actually cost me nothing to upgrade, since the 10% cashback amounted to over $300 for me, more than making up the difference after selling my old 5S.

The only way more iPhone owners will begin using ApplePay is if someone (either retailers, banks, or Apple) offers incentives for use. I think the biggest beneficiary of greater adoption would be Apple. They should be the one offering the incentive. It isn’t like they’re short on cash and can’t afford some promo period…

A couple of years ago when RiteAid announced they would take Apple Pay on date certain, I was the first there at our local store. I had to help them figure it out, which, as I am sure many here can attest, is often how it goes. Apple needs to incentivize and educate the retailers

Under which Apple department head does Apple Pay fall? They really need a large team to both evangelize and help retailers set up to accept Apple Pay. Some terminals at retailers make it clear that Apple Pay can be used, but many do not, even though if you try it Apple Pay works. No Apple Pay user enjoys trying to use an iPhone or Apple watch at a terminal only to fail, and then be forced to sheepishly pull out a wallet to find a credit card instead. This tech shouldn’t expose me potentially doofish behavior…. which it does now. Come on Apple. Make the retailers feel doofish for not having Apple Pay, not me for trying to use it.

You guys are too impatient. It took over two decades before credit cards became a major payment method. It took another one before it became ubiquitous. With Apple Pay just three years old, it’s still in its infancy. Given that only now about 70% of retailers are able to accept the payments, it’s going to take a while before people realize that.

While I use it whenever I can, even I fail to ask if it’s available sometimes, and don’t realize it until after I make my payment. But Apple Pay use is rising dramatically. Give it another five years. It’s hard to change. People just automatically reach for their wallet. But it’s getting better in that most companies now have their loyalty cards tied to it, which was a big argument against it when it first came out.

Whenever I see people saying that Apple Pay will take time to become widely used or that users need financial incentives to try it, I assume that they must live in the USA.

In other developed countries, Apple Pay is available nearly everywhere. Even in China, paying via your mobile phone ( using local system ) is now absolutely universal and cash or credit card payments are the rarities.

Financial incentives aren’t needed and Apple charges such an amazingly low transaction fee to the bank that no margin is available to provide financial incentives to consumers. When people have the opportunity to use it, they want to continue using it as they realise it’s a better way to pay.

Reluctance to embrace electronic payments in stores is specifically an American problem. That same Apple Pay system is almost universally available in other countries and very widely used.

Just out of interest, why do you want to use Apple Pay for on-line purchases on a Mac when Safari already offers the ability to store your credit card details and fill out forms automatically? Whether you use Apple Pay or Safari, it’s the same credit card of yours which handles the transaction.

I can devise some unlikely scenarios, but for most people, I would have thought that securely stored credit card details within your Mac was a pretty good solution for on-line purchasing.